[HAWK – POV]
Apex bounty zones are like bad Tinder dates.
Loud. Bloody. End in screams and blocked numbers.
But this one?
This one felt personal.
The tunnel reeked of copper and bad decisions.
Ash drifted from the cracked ceiling. Fluorescent lights buzzed like they were ready to confess something awful.
And there he was.
Killmonger.
Plasma Rifle steaming in his hand. Long coat swaying like it had its own kill count. Bone mask cracked across one cheek — war trophy or aesthetic choice, hard to say.
He wasn't alone.
Which was a problem.
Because neither was I.
"Step aside, girl," he rasped.
"The trait thief's mine."
I felt Kaiser behind me, too close. Smirking.
Again.
I hate how unbothered he always looks, like the world's just a bar tab he doesn't plan to pay.
"Funny," I said, spinning my blade in one hand.
"That's my punching bag. You want a turn? Take a number." "This isn't your bounty." "He owes me blood and a golden eagle. That makes it personal."
Killmonger tilted his head.
Smiled like he'd just stepped on something he wanted to kill again.
"Of course. A brute like you would defend him. He always did have a way with… strays."
Low blow.
But I didn't flinch.
Because that line?
That smile?
I'd seen it before.
Frost Coil. Three years ago.
Ruined billboard flickering under snow.
A tweet that refused to die.
@KILLMONGER2099
"Kaiser? Lol. That's what we named dogs where I'm from."
And underneath it?
47K retweets.
A quarter million laughs.
He humiliated him.
Publicly.
And now he was here, in person, with a grudge aimed like a sniper.
"You planned this," I muttered. "Technically? I baited him," Kaiser whispered behind me.
"Planning implies I cared how it'd end." "All of it?" "Closure's a hell of a drug." "You absolute—" (He cut me off with a mutter. Low. Casual. Wicked.) "Also... I don't think he knows I slept with his sister."
I turned. Gaped.
"You WHAT?" "Long weekend. Regret. Bad whiskey. Fantastic tattoos." "You're gonna get us both killed." "Technically I'm just the dog." [KAISER – POV]
Heh.
Yeah, I slept with Killmonger's sister.
Honestly?
She started it.
The second he raised his rifle, I felt Oracle Suite scream to life.
Six ways I could die. One chance to survive with all my organs inside.
I ducked, hard.
The blast tore past my head — sliced through two pillars like they were wet paper.
"Faster than last time," I muttered, rolling into cover.
"New mods. Neural sync. Maybe some heartache." "Still compensating for a micro-d—" "FOCUS." hawk screamed
Killmonger didn't come solo.
He brought the f***ing roster.
"Incoming!" I shouted.
First came Iris.
Spindly. Crimson glow pulsing from under her skin like boiling wine.
Apex trait? Emotional tracking. Predictive feedback.
Basically: trauma voyeur with claws.
"Is that your ex?!" Hawk shrieked. "Ex-date," I corrected.
"One drink. Maybe two. Lots of yelling." "She's firing at your crotch." "Yeah. That tracks."
Next? Horax.
Scaled. Cloaked. Forked tongue dripping with acid sarcasm.
And Nulljaw.
Mute. Seven feet of muscle and repressed childhood.
They were here to end me.All top notch crew members.HAHAHAHA i laughed inside.
Not because I stole data. Not because I hunted Apexes.
Not even for the bounty.
They were here because I slept with Killmonger's sister and ghosted her over breakfast.
[HAWK – POV]
I didn't know whether to laugh or slap him. Mother fucker has a deathsquad on him.
But I didn't get to do either because Nulljaw just tackled through a f***ing wall.
And Iris was whispering my death paths now.
Shit was escalating.
Fast.
"We doing this?" I barked, slamming my boot into Horax's shin and flipping back. "We're already in it," Kaiser called, throwing a neural spike at Nulljaw.
We fought.
Back-to-back. Blades and bombs. Banter and blood.
But they were stronger.
Too strong.
And I'm not the sentimental type.
I growled, hand flicking open my inner forearm.
Razor Pulse unlocked.
Skin split. Metal sang. My nerves screamed.
Pain made me stronger.
Made me faster.
But it wasn't enough.
"KAISER!" I screamed.
"This ain't my war." "You're halfway through it!" "You owe me big time."
From my belt, I pulled the red sphere.
100m blast radius.
Detonates on drop.
"Catch you in hell!"
I tossed it.
Turned to walk out like a badass.
Then he ruined it.
[KAISER – POV]
Oh no.
She dropped the red one.
I groaned.
Loud.
"Okay. Time out."
Everyone froze. Even Killmonger blinked.
"That bomb?" I said. "I deactivated it three minutes ago." "You what?!" "You think I didn't see you snooping in my stash?" "YOU GODDAMN—" "It's a paperweight. Congrats. You dropped a glowing stress ball."
Killmonger just stood there.
Rage vibrating off his body.
"You slept with my sister…" he growled. "Didn't know it was your sister until the tattoo," I said.
"Or maybe after."
[HAWK – POV]
You ever been humiliated so hard your blood pressure turns into a weapon?
Because I have.
Right now.
In front of a kill-squad, a sociopath with mommy issues, and the absolute dumbass I may or may not want to strangle mid-makeout…
…I dropped a bomb that wasn't a bomb.
And the bastard had the balls to laugh at me.
"It's a paperweight," Kaiser said out loud. Loud enough that Killmonger's whole crew heard it. "You son of a—"
I lunged at him — not to save him.
To smack him.
But I didn't make it.
Something huge hit my side.
A tail. Bone-spiked. Brutal.
Nulljaw.
His kick connected like a goddamn freight train made of trauma.
Pain shot through my ribs. My feet left the ground. I flew — actually flew — into the wall.
Cracked concrete. Cracked something in my shoulder.
And then darkness.
Not passed out.
Just dazed.
Down.
Useless.
Watching.
I saw them grab him.
Four of them. Shackles. Nulljaw's fist pressing into his back.
Kaiser didn't struggle.
Didn't flinch.
He smiled.
[KAISER – POV]
It was all going exactly to plan.
See, when you fight Apex predators?
You don't beat them by being stronger.
You beat them by being dumber in a very precise way.
"I surrender," I said.
"Violently. Just FYI."
They cuffed my wrists in synthbone. Nulljaw's hand dug into my spine like he was reading my medical history.
Iris leaned in.
Smug. Purring.
"Did you really think you could outmaneuver him?" "No," I whispered.
"But I did sleep with his sister."
I looked at Hawk, dazed against the wall.
Blood in her hair. Rage in her eyes.
And I winked.
"Hey, babe…" I grinned.
"Watch this."
I flexed.
Not my arms.
My Apex trait.
Right wrist. Flesh peeled. Metal hissed.
Plasma edge ....
A blue-white blur of heat burst from my forearm like a solar flare with daddy issues.
The shackles hissed, screamed — and melted.
Before Nulljaw could react, I spun.
And sliced.
IRIS
Cut clean across the waist.
Two perfect halves.
Top slid right. Legs slid left.
Blood fountained in slow, perfect arcs.
I didn't look back.
I didn't need to.
"Iris?" Killmonger called, confused. "She's half the woman she used to be," I said.
"Now let's finish this opera."
Everything exploded.
[HAWK – POV]
I don't know what I loved more.
The sword?
The kill?
Or the audacity.
One second he was chained, next second he turned his arm into a f***ing lightsaber and sliced that creepy red witch like a chef doing a demo for warlords.
"Holy sh—"
I pushed myself up, ribs screaming.
But I was laughing.
Bleeding and laughing.
"Okay, fine," I coughed.
"He sure has his ways with the ladies"
Then everything went sideways.
Horax shrieked. Nulljaw howled. The walls caved as the Apex trait-surge destabilized.
The tunnel went from battleground to apocalyptic blender.
And through the smoke—
Killmonger's eyes glowed black.
He activated something deep.
A mythic-tier trait.
The air around him folded. Screamed. Light bent toward his chest.
Reality didn't like what it saw and tried to vomit.
"Oh no," Kaiser muttered.
"He's going feral now.
[KAISER – POV]
You ever see a man rip open his soul?
Because that's what Killmonger did next.
The ground cracked beneath him. Air twisted. The world went quiet, like reality itself was holding its breath.
Then—
"Second trait"
His skin ignited.
No — it collapsed into shadowfire.
Black flames bled from every joint, eye socket, and pore like the universe was punishing him for existing.
It didn't flicker.
It crawled.
Every step he took, the flames ate the concrete. Screamed as it melted steel and bone alike.
"Oh, shit," I muttered.
"It's the dramatic kind."
Buildings shook.
A hundred meters behind us, a tower exploded from the top down.
No bomb. No blade.
Just heat.
Pure, disobedient, hell-born black fire.
"Kaiser!" Hawk called, ducking behind twisted steel.
"He just melted a f***ing police mecha!" "Good," I said, adjusting my shoulder rig.
"Means he's warmed up."
I pulled my rifle from the back harness.
Witchglass optics. Neural linkage. Zero-recoil plasma chamber.
"What are you doing?!" Hawk shouted. "Sniping God."
One knee down.
Target acquired.
I dialed his body signature like a radio station.
My pulse synced with the breath between flame waves.
Killmonger's heart beat once.
I fired.
BANG.
Plasma round tore through the air — curved mid-flight, rode the gravity wave from his flame trait, and struck him clean in the shoulder.
The bastard staggered.
He didn't fall.
He just smiled.
"You drew blood," he growled.
"Now bleed."
He raised his hand.
Black flames curved toward me like snakes on meth.
[HAWK – POV]
"Nope."
I stepped in front of Kaiser.
And let it burn me.
Pain? Sure.
But you know what pain does?
It f*ing activates me.**
Overdrive surged.
My blood sang.
Oracle-Eye flared white, scanning fire patterns, mapping every death possibility within fifty meters.
I grinned like a psychopath in a candy store with a sledgehammer.
"Let's f***ing go."
I launched myself forward.
The flames couldn't touch me.
I moved through them like rage incarnate — every step fueled by adrenaline, ego, and maybe some unprocessed trauma.
I landed a full spin kick into Killmonger's side.
He grunted.
I'd take that as a win.
But he recovered fast.
Too fast.
And then the new freak showed up.
[KAISER – POV]
Horax.
Seven feet. Horned. Apex bloodline.
Trait: Chrono-collapse.
Time ripples. Combat prediction. Slight spatial skipping.
He was a problem.
Until he wasn't.
"Horax," I said, standing tall.
"Nice to see you off your leash." "You brought this on yourself, trait thief." "Yeah. I tend to do that."
He lunged.
Fast.
Almost too fast.
But not quite.
I twisted, letting his hand skim mine.
And in that brief contact?
I took it.
"Apex Sync: 94%... 98%... 100%." "Stealing: Chrono-Collapse." "Complete."
He paused.
Eyes wide.
"What did you—When did you.?" "I wanted your ability for a while now,, Yours now mine," I whispered.
I blinked.
And time skipped.
I appeared behind him, holding his own knife.
"Trade you your trait... for your spine."
[HAWK – POV]
Oh my god.
Kaiser actually stole Horax's Apex.
Mid-fight.
Like a f***ing anime villain with a porn addiction and too much charisma.
"Are you serious?!" I yelled.
"Could you BE more dramatic?!" "Only if I had a cape," he muttered, mid-stab.
The battlefield was rubble. Fire. Ash.
Killmonger was still standing — burned, bleeding, smiling.
And I knew…
We weren't done yet.
Not by a long shot.
Killmonger stood like a f***ing apocalyptic statue—half-demon, half-wreckage, all ego.
Missing an arm. Black fire leaking from every orifice. Laughing like pain owed him rent.
[HAWK – POV]
Everything hurt.
And I mean everything.
My spleen? Might be somewhere behind that truck.
But I wasn't done.
"Kaiser, cover me. I'm gonna do something stupid." "Again?" "Shut it, pretty boy."
I clenched my jaw.
Overdrive humming.
Oracle-Eye screaming at me with bright red warnings like, "You're going to die, you dumbass."
But I ignored it.
Because this wasn't about survival anymore.
This was about violence. Petty, beautiful, legendary violence.
"Yo, Scorch-Nuts!" I yelled.
Killmonger turned.
"Miss me?"
And then I launched.
Pulse-blade out.
Blood dripping from my fingertips.
One leap, one scream, one clean slice—
His f*ing leg came off.**
Below the knee.
Flaming meat spun through the air like a twisted baton in a parade for psychopaths.
"You're limping now, you overrated bonfire!" I roared.
And that's when he hit me.
One backhand.
Flame-soaked. Full Apex strength.
And I flew like a goddamn paper doll through a hurricane.
Concrete. Wall. Pain. Silence.
[KAISER – POV]
I caught her before she hit the ground.
Her body was shivering, leaking, cracking at every joint.
But her mouth?
Still moving.
"I'm fine," she whispered.
"Just need... twelve organs and a drink." "You're a disaster." "You like disasters." "Fair point."
I pulled her close.
My Golden Eagles gleamed, aimed at the bastard still mutating in front of us.
Killmonger wasn't dying.
He was transcending.
Flame wings. Bone armor. Eyes like starless pits of screaming.
And he was smiling.
That's when I said it.
Soft. Steel-edged. The truth.
"Hawk…" "Mmm?" "You're a lunatic." "Takes one to—ack—know one." "Shut up."
I stood up, one hand still on her shoulder.
Apex pain in every step.
Flames howling around us.
Killmonger ready to become something beyond human.
And I looked her in the eye.
"I've killed warlords, slept with tyrants, and blown up three bunkers for fun." "Is this your pickup line?" she groaned. "No." "...could be."
I aimed my Deagles.
Gold. Gleaming. Angry.
"But this time… I've got something I actually want." "A person who doesn't quit." "A freak who bleeds and bites and gets back up to talk shit." "You."
She blinked.
Once.
Twice.
"Wow," she whispered. "You're worse than romance novels." "I mean it." "You mean you're finally catching feelings between explosions?" "I mean," I whispered, raising my gun toward Killmonger's molten, twisting body— "I've got a partner worth killing beside…" "And a trait I want to steal so bad, I'm gonna carve it out of that bastard's bones."
Killmonger screamed—not in pain.
In laughter.
Flames exploded. His form grew.
Muscle and madness entwined.
His leg was already regrowing.
"You want me?" he howled.
"Come and take it." "Ladies first?" I said. "F*** you," Hawk croaked. "You wish."
"Damn. So this is how girls fall."
I wasn't supposed to be thinking that.
Not when my ribs were fractured into percussion instruments, and I could hear my left lung crying for backup.
But Kaiser—
That bastard.
He was turning murder into ballet.
Killmonger had nothing left but ego, and yet, somehow, still stood. Towering in his cracked black armor, twitching with overcharged Apex flame — like a man trying to hold back an explosion with nothing but hate and scar tissue.
"I am the new world!" he screamed.
"I AM APEX INCARNATE!" "Bro, take a nap," I whispered. "You sound like a crypto bro with fire powers."
Killmonger charged.
Kaiser didn't flinch.
He shifted left — one step, blink-speed — just as Killmonger's fist, wrapped in jagged black flame, slammed where he stood.
The pavement exploded.
Kaiser spun into the air, landed on Killmonger's shoulder, and emptied two rounds from his Deagle into the side of his head.
Blood misted. Bone cracked.
Killmonger roared, twisting, trying to grab him.
But Kaiser was already gone.
He dropped down, Apex reflexes flickering. His movements weren't just fast — they were perfect.
Killmonger lunged again, this time with a flame burst from both hands — a volcanic wave meant to vaporize anything in front of him.
Kaiser rolled under it, grabbed a metal pipe from the rubble, and whipped it like a sword, slicing clean across Killmonger's midsection.
The makeshift blade shattered.
But it did the job.
The warlord stumbled back, gasping, black ichor gushing from the wound.
"You BLEED," Kaiser said. "Not divine. Just full of sh*t."
Killmonger snapped.
He went primal.
Rushing with both fists, flame and hate and Apex instinct.
Kaiser let him come.
And then—
Chrono-Collapse activated.
A flicker.
Killmonger was too slow.
Kaiser appeared behind him.
Grabbed the back of his head.
Slammed it into a stone wall.
Three times.
The wall broke before the skull did.
But not by much.
Killmonger reeled back, bleeding from every orifice now.
Still twitching. Still laughing.
"You can't kill me…" he choked. "You're just another Apex thief…"
Kaiser dropped the guns.
Flexed both hands.
"Nah," he said. "I'm the upgrade they warned you about."
Killmonger lunged for the last time.
Kaiser ducked, slipped the blow, then uppercutted him into the f*ing air**.
He flew—yes, flew—and Kaiser leapt after him, grabbing him mid-air, flipping over his body, and slamming him down into the concrete below like a goddamn meteor.
The ground shook.
Dust exploded.
And Killmonger didn't get up.
Killmonger didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Didn't scream.
Not anymore.
He twitched beneath Kaiser — mouth foaming, bones shattered, his Apex flames flickering out like a dying lighter.
Whatever divine wrath he thought he carried?
It was gone.
He was a meat sack with delusions.
And Kaiser?
Was ready to collect.
"You're not a god," he said, crouching over him.
"You're just a burnt-out freak with a flamethrower fetish."
Kaiser planted his knee into Killmonger's chest. Smoke hissed out of the man's mouth as Kaiser's hand closed over his face.
Fingers spread. Palm locked tight.
Right over the Apex core.
I couldn't move, but I could feel it.
The air rippled. Like reality got too tight around that one moment.
Killmonger's trait — raw, wild, hungry — pulsed between them like a heartbeat wrapped in razorwire.
Kaiser didn't flinch.
"You can't… take it…" Killmonger choked. "Wrong again," Kaiser said, calm.
"See, I don't need to be chosen."
He looked at me.
Smirked.
"I just need it more than anyone else."
And then it began.
The Trait Rip.
Black fire exploded up his arm — not burning him, but feeding into him. Killmonger's skin cracked like porcelain, light bleeding out of every line.
He started to disintegrate — slowly, painfully — his Apex power howling as it was peeled away by force.
And just before Killmonger's skull crumbled into ash—
Kaiser leaned in.
Voice like a grave being zipped shut.
"You should've just shut the f*** up about my name."
Killmonger vanished.
Gone.
Reduced to dust between Kaiser's blood-slick fingers.
He stood up.
Trait still burning in his palm.
Turned toward me, calm as ever.
"You alive?" he asked.
I spat a tooth.
"Define alive."
He smiled.
Then tucked the trait into himself like he'd just pocketed a lighter.
And the air went still.
No gods.
No kings.
Just us.
And the silence that followed the kind of violence legends are afraid to repeat.
END OF CHAPTER 2